


Five Times Rose Tasted Like Peppermint, and One Time the Doctor Did, Too.

by cereal



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does what it says on the tin!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Rose Tasted Like Peppermint, and One Time the Doctor Did, Too.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [winterinthetardis](http://winterinthetardis.tumblr.com)'s birthday over on Tumblr, because she LOVES peppermint.
> 
> * * *

"Where'd you get that?"

The Doctor's voice sounds amused, and teasingly accusatory. It should be surprising, that he's already figured out she came by the candy cane in ways that weren't entirely aboveboard. And it _would_ be surprising, if she weren't eating that very candy cane in an alien prison, thousands of years and millions of miles from her home on Earth.

"Nicked it," she says, candy still in her mouth. She's sucked and licked and worked the long end down into a fine point, like she used to do as a kid. Only now she intends to use it to break out of that wholly unsurprising alien prison, not poke Mickey with it until he tattles.

"Nicked it from where?"

He's been watching her for five minutes now, and while she'd hoped that his first acknowledgment of her snack would be a healthy dose of praise for her abilities to make a lock-pick, she's still pleased at the opportunity to tell him she'd picked his pockets.

"Your jacket," she says and smiles sweetly.

He shifts from his position on the floor, hands patting the leather of his coat over the pockets. She can see on his face the moment he realizes she's telling the truth because his expression turns to scandalized.

"When did you do that?"

She laughs, pulling the candy cane from her mouth with a final lick -- it's perfect now.

"When you fell asleep on me," she says. "That does loads for my ego, by the way."

His mouth opens and closes a few times, "I did no such thing, went into a state of extreme concentration is all. I was mentally cataloging the contents of my pockets, looking for something small enough to fit in the hole for the release button, and here you were _disrupting_ those contents!"

She closes one eye, tilting the candy cane so it looks like it's poking him in the nose.

"Did you catalog your way into a paperclip? 'Cause I didn't find one of those, and that would have been a lot easier."

He leans forward on his knees, plucking the candy cane from her, the plastic wrapper crinkling in his fingers as he shifts toward the door of cell.

"Oi! I found the solution, I get to be the hero," she complains, leaning after him.

"I think you'll find that when you _steal_ the answer from someone, the glory really belongs to them," he says, eyes narrowed on the tip of the candy cane as he fits it into the small lock. The Byrstavians have hands, well, fingers perfectly formed for the locks, and she's hoping the tip of the candy cane will just reach the release.

"You probably stole that from somewhere yourself," she says, leaning in even closer and smiling in satisfaction when his nose twitches. Her breath's minty fresh, she's sure of it.

He makes a non-committal noise, fingers still working the candy cane, trying not to snap off the delicate tip.

"Oh, come on, you can tell me," she says. "It looks just like the ones we used to get at Christmas when I was younger. Tastes like it, too, sort of waxy underneath the mint. I always thought it was because we got the store brand."

The Doctor hands back the candy cane and claps, rising from his knees as a small hiss signals the release of the door's airlock.

He helps her stand and then gestures for her to go through the door. It's night on Byrstavia, the halls of the prison are dark and empty, apparently even the guards here sleep on the same schedule.

"It is," he whispers to her just as they push through the final door, the TARDIS coming into view.

"It is what?" She answers, voice rising to a normal level the closer they get to home.

"It is a candy cane from when you were younger."

He opens the door to the TARDIS and she follows him through, "How is it a candy cane from when I was younger? Did you pick up a box? Why? There's got to be better sweets somewhere in the galaxy."

He fiddles with the controls on the console, sending them into the vortex, "I wasn't anywhere else in the galaxy, I was there. And you," he points at her. "Rose Tyler, forgot to leave cookies for Santa. Had to make it up on the spot."

She tilts her head, tongue pressing against the roof of her mouth as it all comes together.

"Did you -- is this from when you dropped off that bicycle? Mum was after me all morning! It was the last one and she thought I'd nicked it and eaten it for breakfast!"

He shrugs, "You did nick it eventually. And I'm not sure it would have made a worse breakfast than anything your mother could possibly cook."

She grins, touching her tongue to her teeth, "You know, a picture of my mum actually went missing that same Christmas. You nick that, too? I bet you like her more than you let on. Let me see your pockets!"

He jumps back as she darts towards him and her laughter fills the console room, loud and clear and peppermint-scented.

&&.

He is a new man, full of new energy, new likes and dislikes, and a new body to house them in.

She is Rose Tyler, an old companion, in her old flat, participating in old traditions from her old life.

And together they are in the present, Christmas with her mum and gifts under the tree.

"Oh, come on, Rose," her mum says. "You know we're not done yet! Still one thing left to find!"

It's silly, really, although when she was younger, it seemed so brilliant. A little kid aching to grow up, asking for nothing but make up for Christmas, and her mum trying in vain to keep her little.

She remembers being surrounded by toys and clothes and books that year, happy, but sad, and then her mum, squinting at something under the sofa.

"Look, Rose, Santa must have dropped that!"

And there it was, her first tube of lip gloss. It's arrived every year since, a single tube, hidden in the flat, a little tradition for just the two of them.

Of course, Mickey has helped, has been a part of it. When she was 16 and the little tube was pineapple flavored, he'd found it in the empty kettle and leered at her when her mum had turned away.

But this year, Mickey hangs back, and watches as she explains the tradition to the Doctor.

"So we're looking for gloss? _Lip_ gloss?" He pops the 'p' and she smothers a grin at this new, lighter Doctor, pleased even at the way words fit in his mouth.

"Yep," she says, and when he reaches for his sonic, she stops him with a hand over his, trying not to shudder at the memory of it regrowing. "No cheating."

The Doctor looks affronted, "Me? Cheat? Never." He surveys the flat. "Did Father Christmas leave any clues, Jackie?"

Her mum looks at him skeptically, it's a civil enough question, but it seems, like Rose, her mum is hunting for pieces of the old in the new.

"It's in this room, I'll tell you that," her mum says. "Don't need you hunting around in my knicker drawer."

The Doctor visibly blanches and Rose feels something loosen in her chest. When she looks to her mum, she can see a gentle smile there, like she's trying to help.

Rose smiles back and moves to the sofa, lifting a few of the pillows. The Doctor is at her side a moment later, crowding into her space in a way that feels claustrophobic and distant at the same time.

It's like he's next to her, but holding himself away, and, as he overturns cushions and tosses blankets aside, she longs for the easy closeness she'd shared with the last him.

He finds the lip gloss five minutes later, brandishing it like a trophy as he pulls it from behind a picture frame.

"I found it!" he crows. "What do I win? I mean, obviously the lip gloss goes to you, but is there a reward for finding it?"

Rose's cheeks flush with the memory of how she'd rewarded Mickey that one year, and even though the Doctor doesn't know, can't know, he catches her blush and stops himself.

"Well, I suppose a job well done is it's own reward," he says and scrubs a hand through his hair.

It's not the first time he's done that, this new him, but this time she's gripped with the impulse to do it for him, to run her own hands through his hair, to scratch her fingernails against his scalp and see what he does.

As if sensing her thoughts, he hands over the tube of lip gloss and backs away. It's peppermint this year, and part of the tradition is that she puts it on.

She unscrews the top, squeezing a small amount of gloss to the top, and decidedly doesn't look at the Doctor as she rings it around her lips.

When she's done, she finally raises her eyes to find that her mum and Mickey have started collecting the wrapping paper and that the Doctor is staring at her mouth.

The noise of the flat drops out and she watches, frozen, as the Doctor licks his lips.

Oh.

Then he's shaking himself, as if nothing has happened, and she's left with the square peg of their old relationship, and a much newer, a much younger and skinnier, hole.

With the taste of peppermint on her lips, she waits to see if they can make it fit.

&&.

They aren't going to row. They apparently aren't even going to speak of it.

But back in the vortex after a trip to France, all Rose wants is an ending.

An end for the way her gut is churning, an end to the pitying looks Mickey keeps throwing her, an end to the sound of Reinette's voice echoing in her ears, light and clever and polished.

Or, well, what she wants is a different ending, one on her terms. Because there's already been an ending today -- an end to her fantasies about what she could be to the Doctor and a stop to the illusion that he just isn't like that.

It's not him, it's her, and other songs that sound the same across time and space.

After dropping Mickey off in his room, she starts for the console room three different times. Anger, sadness, and acceptance -- it doesn't escape her attention that she'd gotten the farthest with anger.

Instead, she goes back to her own room, and takes a shower.

It's hardly refreshing, too hot to be anything except uncomfortable, but it's fitting in a way, how she can't settle into the temperature like she no longer feels settled in her skin.

When she's dressed in a clean set of pajamas, the least revealing ones she owns, because she won't play coy tonight, won't bait the Doctor with low-cut vests and short shorts, she moves to brush her teeth.

The smell hits her as soon as the toothpaste leaves the tube. Bananas, a find the Doctor had been overjoyed with on Wakos VII. He'd bought out the whole supply and personally deposited a tube of it in every loo on the TARDIS.

At the time, Rose had been delighted, too, skipping along next to him down corridor after corridor, wondering aloud what would happen if they flushed every toilet on the TARDIS at the exact same time or why there was a bowl of gelatin in the loo off the wardrobe, but now she wants this toothpaste gone.

The Doctor, tie wrapped around his head, smelling of bananas and expensive perfume and, no.

No.

She shoves the toothpaste cap back on, not bothering to turn it, and drops it into the bin. She rifles through every cabinet in the bathroom and can't find anything else. She checks four empty bathrooms and the one in Mickey's room, before stalking to the console room.

The Doctor has moved from the console to the jumpseat and when she enters he looks up, face guarded.

"Do we have any toothpaste?"

His eyebrows draw together, but then he's standing, "Yes, yes, of course we have toothpaste."

She follows him to the closest restroom, watching as he removes the banana toothpaste from the cabinet next to the sink and hands it to her before closing the cabinet door.

"No," she says, and fights the urge to drop this one into the bin as well. "A different flavor."

He looks genuinely confused now, eyes squinting at the small tube in her hand, her fingers wrapped around it tightly.

"I'm sick of bananas," she says.

His eyes widen and he nods, slow and sad. She tries to smile at him, but it still hurts, everything still hurts. He puts his hand to the wall and closes his eyes briefly and when he opens the cabinet this time, there's a new tube inside. He removes it and passes it to her.

"Peppermint," he says.

She goes back to her room, brushes her teeth, and doesn't sleep all night.

&&.

Rose can smell the garlic from all the way in her room, even with several closed doors between her and Little Italy.

"I thought you said nothing could get into the TARDIS," she calls out in the direction of her bedroom door, the one the Doctor is on the other side of, pacing the grating.

"Nothing that I don't _want_ to get in can get in," he shouts back. "I rather enjoy this smell. And would enjoy the food creating it, if someone would hurry up."

She opens her door with a flourish and a grin, "Who, me?"

The Doctor's eyes skip over her outfit -- white t-shirt, jeans, and trainers that match his, but in black. She preens, shifting this way and that, tongue between her teeth. It's nothing fancy, what she's got on, but the jeans are just clingy enough over her bum, the v-neck of the shirt dipping just a bit too low, that she's mostly pleased with it.

And from the way the Doctor's eyes linger right what they're supposed to, she imagines he is, too. But of course he won't say.

"Really, white? To a pasta festival?"

She rolls her eyes, "Really, a suit? In the middle of the summer?"

He laughs and reaches for her hand, tugging her down the hallway toward the doors.

Out in the sunlight, the smell is even more overwhelming, making her mouth water and her stomach grumble.

"Hope you brought your appetite," the Doctor says, leaning to her ear to be heard over the noise of the festival.

She shoves down the thing in her that wants to react at the feeling of his cool breath against her skin.

"Of course I brought it," she says. "Do you have yours? Because I can eat a lot of pasta, Doctor. _A lot_. And I'd hate to seem unladylike if you can't keep up."

Swinging their hands between them as they walk, he grins at her, "Unladylike? From Rose Tyler? _The_ Rose Tyler, the one who told me just last week she could belch on command? Still waiting to see that, by the way -- no, never unladylike, not her, I won't hear it."

He presses his lips together and shakes his head, as if banishing the thought, and she nudges into him with her shoulder.

"Better watch it," she says, and spares a moment to recognize that she doesn't mind if he knows she can burp with the best of them. It's a comforting feeling, that she really is just herself with him, that he knows all the intimate details of her life.

Well, except for the _actual_ intimate details. But even that, it doesn't seem like such a far off thing anymore. It feels like maybe an inevitability instead, and she just has to be patient.

"Oh, I'll watch it, I'll watch as I put your pasta-eating to shame," he says, and releases her hand to guide her into the entry gates. He pays for both of them, digging around in his pockets for crumpled bills while she tries to figure out where to start.

They're issued plates and plastic cutlery and she takes off for the ravioli tent, the Doctor right on her heels. It's set up like a buffet line and she helps herself to a very precise count of four ravioli.

The Doctor squints at her plate and then spoons out five onto his own.

It continues like this all across the festival, one-upping each other, poking and teasing like children.

And then it changes.

There's a meatball she hasn't eaten yet on her plate and he spears it with his fork, popping it into his mouth with a dare in his eye.

She only hesitates for a moment at the next tent when he toddles off into a ramble right in the middle of eating and there's a mouthful of pasta twirled around the fork he's gesturing with. She stills his hand, and eats it, right from his fork.

By the time they've reached the desserts, it's stopped being a competition about food, and started being one about personal boundaries.

Not that they've ever been great at respecting those.

The Doctor's silverware gets left on a plate of tiramisu and she gives hers over with barely a thought, alternating bites of a scoop of ice cream as they shift the same spoon between them.

His mouth where hers has been, hers where his has been, and the ice cream slowly melting, requiring tongues and lapping and licking and it's too much and not enough, and then his knee brushes hers under the table.

She freezes at the contact, the slide of his trousers against the denim of her jeans, and she feels every inch, every centimeter of the fabric, the friction as it passes. The spoon she's holding, the last few drops of ice cream clinging to it, clatters to the table, and she must have let go, but she doesn't remember doing it.

The only muscles she's aware of are the ones keeping her leg pressed to his.

"Is this it then?" He says and his voice is low and soft. It feels like this is it, like the time for patience has come and gone, like she could lean forward and press her lips to his. He's so close.

She can't make herself do it though, wants him to be the one to take this final step, and instead she nods.

His eyes drop to her mouth and it's deliberate, it has to be deliberate, and there's a moment where her lips part, and she waits.

Then, in a rush of movement, he's pushing back from the table and away from her.

"I accept your concession, Rose Tyler," he says and it sounds so loud, so strained. "And hereby declare myself the winner."

Her body goes hot, pins and needles flooding into her limbs, as her mind races to catch up. It was there, they were there, _he_ was there. She forces herself to meet his eye.

He looks regretful and sad, holding himself tense, and where there should be anger, or at least frustration, she can only feel the same -- regret that isn't time, sad that it might never be.

They make their way to the exit without discussing it, and at the final gate, she plucks a peppermint from a large bowl, snagging a second one for the Doctor. When she turns to give it to him, he's already looking ahead, toward the TARDIS. She unwraps and eats her own, putting his in her pocket.

She'll keep it for him, until he's ready.

&&.

The first few jumps with the dimension cannon leave her with a metallic taste in her mouth. It coats her tongue and follows her home, through toothpaste and mouthwash and a whole pack of gum.

It's not so bad, not really, nothing she can't handle, but Mickey notices anyway, and she sees him moments before her most recent jump, whispering to the crew.

When she lands, it's with a breath of cold air, and it takes a minute to realize what's different. She smacks her lips together.

Peppermint.

The best breath in several universes and no one to tell.

&&.

"I wasn't even aware this universe _had_ peppermint schnapps, Doctor."

He's sitting on the ground, having folded himself into the small space between the coffee table and the sofa, and peering up at her with wide, proud eyes.

"It _didn't_!" In the space of two words, his voice has grown to a shout. "I _made_ it!"

He raises his arm to point above his head, turning his hand a few times until he aims a finger toward the kitchen, "In there. I made it in there."

Rose leans forward, peering into the kitchen, at the wreckage across the work surface and a half-full pitcher near the sink.

"Apparently you did," she confirms.

"And you'll have some, right? I saved you some. I saved you all the somes. Half the somes. Half the _sums_. What's that? A palindrome? A _homonym_. Words, Rose, words are great, brill--lll--iant."

If this were anything like a regular occurrence, coming home from work on a Friday night to find the Doctor drunk, in the middle of their flat, she would be annoyed. But it's not a regular occurrence, it's not even a semi-regular occurrence, it's a thing that's only happened once -- tonight -- and, well, she could use a drink.

"Sure, Doctor, I'll have some," she says and he claps delightedly before pushing himself up from the floor. Once he's stood, he smiles at her, swaying on unsteady feet.

"After you," he drawls and gestures toward the kitchen. She takes a moment to size him up before heading in. He has on those jeans that make his bum look fantastic and a t-shirt that's just half a size too small, clinging to the angles of his body in a way that gets her teeth itching to be put to use.

He catches her staring and, in a moment of perfect sobriety, stretches his arms above his head, revealing the flat of his stomach and the jut of his hipbones. He tops it off with a messy wink and a sloppy grin, but the damage is already done.

"Let me catch up," she says and saunters into the kitchen with a little bit more wiggle than is strictly necessary. "In the meantime, you figure out if that --," she makes a circle in the air in front of his jeans, " -- is going to be in working order, or if you've drowned it in peppermint schnapps."

She's barely got a glass poured before he's pressed himself up behind her, arching his hips into her bum, "Oh, it's working, Rose Tyler."

Wiggling back against him, she fights down a grin at the noise he makes, and takes her first sip of the drink. It tastes exactly like she remembers from nights on the estate, a group of them and a bottle smuggled out of someone's flat, bundled up against the cold under the glow of a streetlight.

"This is good," she says. "Maybe you've got a future as a bootlegger."

His hands, which had settled on her hips, skate lower, along the outside of her trousers, "I'd rather have a future as a Rose-legger."

She laughs as he drops his forehead to her shoulder, groaning.

"You want to try again?"

She feels him nod against her shoulder, his voice muffled by her jumper as he says, "Yes."

"Okay, go ahead," she says, and takes another long sip of her drink.

"I'd rather have a future with your legs."

She winces, sucking in air through her teeth, "I think you were closer that time, definitely. How did it feel for you?"

He reaches around her, plucking the glass from her fingers, and finishing her drink in one long sip.

"I can do better," he says, and when she turns to look at him, he's wiping a hand across his mouth, like he's preparing for battle.

Grabbing the glass back, she fills it to the brim, nearly emptying the pitcher, and waves it toward the living room, "Let's give it a go out there, maybe your focus will be better."

He nods, and slinks out of the kitchen, shoulders drooping, but when he glances back to make sure she's following, he winks again, and it lands this time.

They settle on the sofa, and Rose returns to her drink, taking steady sips that begin to buzz in her veins.

"You ready?" she finally says.

The Doctor slaps his palms onto his thighs, "Ready."

"And -- go."

He shifts forward, leaning into her, the smell of peppermint blanketing everything, "I am going to fuck you until you scream my name, Rose Tyler."

She feels that one right down to the tips of her toes, warm and liquid, and every inch of her is straining toward him. He's giving her his best bedroom eyes and she almost lets him have it, except for the quirk of his lips that's begging her to challenge him.

"Ooh, I don't know," she says and he grins.

"It's because it sounds like my name is Rose Tyler, isn't it?"

She drops her hand onto his leg, rubbing in a conciliatory gesture, "A little bit, yeah."

He shakes her off, "I'll get it, I'll get it."

Another minute passes and she makes more progress on her drink, but she doesn't need it anymore, barely tastes it, too focused on the Doctor, and the way he's absent-mindedly stroking himself through his jeans. If this is what helps him think, it's a wonder they ever made it out of anywhere alive. Or clothed.

Finally, he clears his throat.

"I am so hard," he says, and she feels a little pang of regret that their game is over, that he doesn't want to play anymore.

"We can --" She gestures toward the hallway and the bedroom.

He shakes his head and -- oh. _Oh_.

"I get so hard just thinking about you, Rose Tyler," he looks at her pointedly when he says her name and she holds her breath, moving closer to him. "The way your breasts feel in my hands, the way you taste, how your legs lock around my hips. The only place I ever want to be is inside you."

He pauses then, gaze fixing on hers, and she tries to find her footing, keep up her half. She closes her eyes, reaching to calm herself, and the smirk he's wearing when she opens them again is enough to go on.

"Wouldn't that be difficult though?" she asks. "Wouldn't get much done if we were constantly connected at the genitals."

He shifts again, tucking his legs up underneath himself to kneel facing her, "Oh, but we would. I would get _so much_ done. All the ways I would make you come, with my fingers, and my mouth, Rose, we would conquer worlds, right from our flat."

Setting her glass on the table, she rises up on the sofa to meet him. She presses her chest to his and slips a hand between them to undo the button on his jeans, smiling at the stuttering noise he makes in response.

"Are we in the world-conquering business now? Thought we were about giving, more than taking?"

His hands cover hers, gently manuevering down the zip on his jeans before shifting to the fly on her own trousers.

"I think you may have misunderstood," he says, dropping his mouth to her neck and leaving wet, warm kisses against the skin there. "I like taking, too." And he gets the clasp on her trousers open, the zip lowered, before he's slipped his fingers inside to edge against her knickers.

His fingers stroke rhythmically through the thin cotton as his lips finally find hers. He tastes like peppermint and _Doctor_ as his tongue pushes into her mouth, sliding against her own. The angles are all wrong, she can't get at what she wants, can't get him to give it to her either, and she pulls back.

"How about you _take_ your clothes off?" she says.

"Now who's got the shoddy lines?" But he's already up off the sofa, tugging his jeans and boxer briefs down.

"They're working," she waggles a finger up and down at where he's hopping on one foot, trying to kick his clothes the rest of the way off.

"Well, why don't you _take_ your clothes off, too?" His voice is muffled briefly as he lifts his t-shirt over his head. "Or I'm going to do it for you."

She rolls her eyes, dramatically put-upon, "Fine," she says, and reaches to pull her jumper off, unsnapping her bra and shimmying out of that, too. "If you insist."

He's back at the couch in a flash, bearing down over her to tug her trousers and knickers off, "Oh, I insist."

It's quick work to get themselves sorted, although the Doctor knocks into the coffee table, sending the rest of her drink flying.

He fits himself between her legs, tugging at the back cushions of the sofa before throwing them off entirely, and then he's positioning himself, sliding into her with a groan.

Her legs lock around his hips, and he's muttering into her neck, "Yeah, just like that," before starting into a rhythm, the sort of short, fast strokes that always get her there quickest, even if they usually draw things out a bit first.

She gets one hand around his back, fingers digging into the skin, thumb edging the curves of his ribs, as he pins her other hand to the arm of the sofa above her head, pressing down for leverage.

"Told you I was going to make you come," he pants, and she tries to focus, tries to get out a response, but it skitters away as she breathes out, " _Fuck_."

He shifts just enough that she can arch up into him, meeting him on each thrust, and she hangs there for just a moment, waiting, waiting, waiting, and his voice in her ear, " _Now_."

She lets go with a shout, body arching up into his, and he breaks his rhythm, hard, sloppy thrusts and he's right behind her, coming with a grunt as he presses her down into the sofa.

It's a few sweaty, breathy moments later, as she's stroking his back and he's kissing her neck, that she comes back to herself, and the way the room wreaks of peppermint.

"I can't believe you _made_ peppermint schnapps," she says.

He nods against her shoulder, "Gonna make it again."

Rose can't wait.

* * *


End file.
